Homing (27 page)

They bustled him away.

Mab stood still in the hall and watched him go up the stairs, Stephen and Virginia on either side of him, lest he overbalance in the heavy cast. When they had all disappeared round the landing, she became aware of Evadne standing beside her.

“He’s been awfully good,” Evadne was saying. “Too good. It’s not natural.” She linked her arm in Mab’s and turned her towards the drawing room. “He’s got to let go, some time. We thought Midge might do it, but that didn’t work.”

“What’s become of Midge?”

“Dinah’s got him. But it’s not much fun for him, alone all day and most evenings, he’s almost stopped singing, it’s as if he was beginning to suspect that Sylvia isn’t coming back. Mab—we thought if you would ask Jeff to let you have Midge—to keep, I mean—”

“No—I can’t do that.”

“Why not? Don’t you want the poor little beggar either?”

“I’d love to have him,” Mab said simply. “But—”

“Well, then. We thought it might sort of break the ice, if you offered. Jeff won’t let us touch her things. Everything is just as she left it. He can’t be allowed to go on like this, he’ll go gently mad, you know.”

“I’m not the one to—intrude on him now.”

“Mab, what a word! He knows you adored Sylvia—”

“I’d rather not.”

Evadne fell silent, puzzled. There were things at work here
too deep for her comprehension. But time was passing. Everyone was pressed and hurried these days, respite was brief, decisions must be made. She lit a cigarette and reluctantly allowed the conversation to drift into the weather and the question of
Christmas
presents. Mummy will have to deal with this, she thought, I’ll have to leave it all to Mummy.

There was still Evadne’s December birthday to be celebrated, belatedly, before Christmas was actually upon them, but it was not a very festive occasion, with only eight at table, the best they could do. Nigel, still feeling much below par, was being
accommodated
in one of the servants’ rooms on the top floor which until recently had been full of local Red Cross supplies, and Anne had all her meals with the family now instead of going to the canteen. They found themselves faced with a delicate problem—for how could there be a wedding in the house, so soon after Jeff’s tragedy? And yet time was so precious. Even if Nigel went into the Regional Commissioner’s office and remained in the neighbourhood—time could run so short.

Oliver had recently been transferred from his London post to a mysterious job connected with the Home Guard programme in the West. It kept him travelling about a good deal, and had enabled him to arrive from Cardiff tonight with Phoebe, just in time for dinner. As Jeff was dining in bed as prescribed (with everything cut up and cleverly arranged for a man with only one useful hand) Oliver and Phoebe went up behind his tray, carrying cocktails, so that he could drink Evadne’s health and not feel too out of things. It was the first time they had met since Sylvia’s death, and he found to his relief that there was no necessity to talk about it, once the first bad moments were passed.

“There is one thing I wish you would do for me,” he said when he could. “That’s to convey to Nigel however you can that he’s not to alter his plans on my account. I would take it very hard if he and Anne were too tactful to get on with their lives just because mine has been knocked up.”

“I’ll see to it,” said Oliver, with his small, wise smile, and Jeff felt that it was already as good as done.

Since Bracken was not there, Virginia found herself glancing for reassurance at Oliver during dinner—Oliver, who always knew what was what. Now that he and Phoebe had seen Jeff, they knew what they were all up against there. But there was also Mab. And Nigel. I must talk to Oliver, Virginia was thinking as the birthday cake came chanting in. There’s so little time. Blast
the war. Things never got out of hand like this when we could all come and go as we liked.

Everybody admitted to being confoundedly tired, and the drawing room emptied rather early that evening. When lights were out downstairs, Virginia left Mab reading in the other bed and with a flimsy excuse went along to Phoebe and Oliver’s room, where she found them still pottering about in
dressing gowns
and was warmly received and offered a cigarette.

Oliver was not surprised at what she came to say. She had not expected him to be. During her recital his eyes went to Phoebe more than once.

“It’s too soon,” he said, when Virginia had as it were left the whole thing in his lap. “We can’t do anything yet. Give it a little time.”

“But Mab wants to go away—back to Irene—even to
Williamsburg
. It’s pathetic.”

Oliver nodded.

“She won’t see much of him for a while. He’ll be staying in his room.”

“But that’s not natural, they’re always together when he’s here!”

“And you used to worry about that too, didn’t you,” he reminded her. “We all did, I fancy. I even spoke out of turn to him about it last Christmas. I risked making things worse, of course. One always does, by calling attention and pointing out. Perhaps without the blasted war it wouldn’t have come on so fast—If things could have wagged along in the usual way—” He broke off with a sigh. “Maybe we can’t blame the war this time. The pattern was already there.”

“Going all the way back to Tibby’s portrait at Williamsburg,” said Virginia. “But they’re wrong to feel guilty. It might just as well have been Jeff that got killed instead of Sylvia. He was out in the blitz nearly every night, taking just as much risk as she did.”

“Cast your mind back,” said Oliver, and she groped a minute—back to 1916, when his first wife Maia had been killed in a Zeppelin raid.

“But that was different,” she objected uncertainly, for nobody could honestly miss Maia very much, and she had made his life a misery for years.

“It’s always different,” he agreed. “But the feeling of guilt was there, just the same. Phoebe and I were in love, and Maia knew it. Her death seemed an awful retribution—for somebody. It
took quite a while to work out what we thought must be the right answer.”

“And what was it?” Virginia asked.

“Well, what it boils down to—and it sounds easier than it is—seems to be that we aren’t running the show. Are we?”

“N-no—” said Virginia, following slowly.

“We don’t dispose. There’s somebody upstairs who does that. When Maia died, no amount of self-sacrifice by Phoebe and myself could alter the fact. It seemed just possible that it was all a part of the pattern which had brought us together in the beginning. At least, I would as lief assume a pattern somewhere as just a blind, higgledy-piggledy aimlessness everywhere. Nothing but good has come of my happiness with Phoebe. No possible good could have come of the two wretched, frustrated people we should have been separately. And I cannot believe that it matters any more to Maia, either way.”

“Then you think there is a sort of design,” said Virginia thoughtfully.

“There must be. Sometimes we can’t see it, whichever way we look. Sometimes it seems to stick out a mile.”

“Can’t you get Jeff to accept that?”

“It’s too soon,” he said.

During the usual Christmas shuffle, when three of the Bank girls went home on leave, and Claudia departed permanently to join the ATS, it seemed to be a good time for Nigel and Anne to establish themselves in the room she had hitherto shared with Claudia. They were married very quietly in the village church at the weekend, which they spent in a small hotel in a nearby Cotswold village, and returned to Farthingale on Christmas Eve.

Dinah had rung up from London that morning.

“If you’re going to do anything about this bird,” she said, “you’ll have to hurry. He won’t eat now. He’s pining. He knows.”

Virginia said perhaps if Mab would take care of him, talk to him, get him to come on her finger—and had they tried
icecream
? Midge always fell for icecream.

“Tracy Marsh is here,” said Dinah. “He’s coming down to spend Christmas with Rosalind and Charles. He and Charles are driving down in a Consulate car, and I can send Midge with them.”

“Wh-when did he turn up?” Virginia asked weakly.

“Tracy? He just walked in yesterday, at the office, and Bracken brought him home to dinner. He’s been in Paris. He says.”

“
Well!
”
said Virginia, and “What?” said Dinah, and “Nothing,” said Virginia. “I was surprised, that’s all, I hadn’t heard a word from him, and had no idea—”

“Oh, well, you know how Tracy is,” Dinah said easily. “Now you see him and now you don’t. Anyway, he and Charles will drop Midge off there on the way to Cleeve.”

“Is he all right?” Virginia asked stupidly. “Tracy, I mean.”

“There’s nothing wrong with Tracy, it’s Midge we’re worried about,” Dinah reminded her.

“We’ll do the best we can. Jeff’s still in his room, he needn’t know.”

And so, with Nigel and Anne causing a certain amount of upheaval in their way, and with a certain amount of doubt about how Mab would feel about having Midge to look after, to say nothing of finishing the tree and the presents, which Evadne could take over, and Christmas dinner, for which they were
short-handed
in the kitchen now, Tracy Marsh was going to walk in again. Charles would be coming with him—the house was full of people—what was there to be so nervous about? It would be Hello and good bye again. How long would he be at Cleeve, though? Did she
want
to see him alone?

Virginia found herself staring at her own face in the mirror. Her hair was definitely whiter this year, and that was not
unbecoming
. She would do her face up after lunch. Would it be cheating to change into the little black dress she kept for special occasions? You hussy, she said to the woman in the glass. He’s got trouble enough. And so have you, she added firmly. This way you can bear it. It would be much worse if he belonged to you.

She turned away from the mirror and went to find Mab, who accepted the responsibility of Midge without enthusiasm, but so long as Jeff didn’t have to know—

Somehow Virginia was wearing the little black dress when Tracy’s car came up the drive that afternoon. Somehow Anne and Nigel were in their room unpacking. Somehow Phoebe and Oliver had gone for a walk. And somehow Tracy stepped out of the car alone, carrying the covered cage in his hand.

“Charles was anxious to get home,” he said casually. “We stopped there first. He said we must all have a drink together soon.”

Mab set the cage on the table in the hall and peeked under the cover. Midge sat bunched on the perch, and showed no interest in his surroundings, which was most unusual for him. She took him away to the room she and Virginia shared, with Noel trotting jealously at her heels, and Virginia was left to lead the way into the drawing room. Tea was not due for half an hour. He declined a drink with thanks, and sat looking at her across the hearthrug.

“Well, Tracy—what do you think now?”

“Well, now we’re thinking about the next thing,” he smiled.

“Which is—?”

He shook his head.

“There’s so little time,” he said. “Let me just enjoy this.”

“Yes, I know, but where are we with this war? What about Greece?”

“Done for.”

“And then?”

He leaned forward in the big chair, linking his hands loosely in front of him, smiling, composed, but rueful.

“Virginia,” he said, dismissing the war. “How about coming to America now—as my wife?”

“
Tracy!
”

“Now, don’t pretend to be surprised,” he said, amused.

“Why are you going to America?”

“Sent for,” he said briefly.

“Something new?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Gas?”

“Even if I could tell you, my dear, I wouldn’t.”

“Tracy, it wasn’t Paris, was it? Tracy, have you been in Germany?”

“What does that matter?”

“The secret weapon,” she guessed acutely. “When?”

“I think I’ll change my mind about that drink,” he said.

She rang for Melchett.

“Would you take Mab to America for me, before it happens?”

“Sweetheart—there was no secret weapon in my proposal to you. I’m going to Washington by and by, for quite a spell, apparently. I would like to have you with me. It’s as simple as that.”

“When do you go?”

“Not for a bit. The point is—will you come?”

“Tracy, you know I can’t. Not for a variety of reasons. We’ve got our hands full here, in the family.”

“Yes, I understand that,” he said quickly, with sympathy. “Bracken told me a little.”

Melchett answered the bell, and returned at once with a tray, and Tracy sat a while with a full glass in his hand, attentive, intelligent, alert—listening to the family dilemma.

“Oh, do forgive me, I’ve been running on,” Virginia said penitently at last. “It’s so good to talk to someone—adult,” she explained in confusion. “I miss Bracken, I think. I’m tired of trying always to be the oracle myself.”

“I’m sure you must be,” he said, gravely. “Now let us be practical a moment. Jeff, after all, has his own mother here, as well as Bracken and Dinah and his job, which he will be able to get back to before long. Nigel has a wife now, they tell me. And Mab, after all, has parents, hasn’t she?”

Virginia tried to explain further about Mab, and how especially since Basil’s birth she had seemed to belong at
Farthingale
more than with Irene and Ian.

“I see,” said Tracy gravely. “Would you consider bringing her with you, to Washington?”

“Tracy, you’re being very difficult, aren’t you?”

“Am I? Would you rather I said no more about it?”

But then she was silent, looking down at her hands in her lap.

“I want very much to be of some use to you,” he said, holding on to himself with an effort. “We have left it very late, Virginia, but there is still a little time, if we make use of it.”

“We’ve been so long apart—” she began rather breathlessly.

“That we are strangers?” He contemplated it. “It’s hard for me to realize that. You have been so constantly with me, all this time. But you have had a great many other things to think about,” he added, naively discounting his own career and achievement. “I shall be several days at Cleeve, I hope. With any luck we may see something of each other—”